EP066 - Tale as Old as Time w/ Gene Gallerano

Keith walks Hyde Park—with a detour into & across the Hancock Golf Course—with LA's Gene Gallerano.  An East Dallas kid raised on the humanities and Poor David's Pub, Gene's an actor-turned-producer-turned-Emmy-winning director, fresh off multiple wins at the Waco FF for THANK YOU FOR LISTENING, his Texas Monthly short about country singer Joshua Ray Walker. The origin story is a rom-com: Gene boards a flight, spots Joshua Ray, and talks to him for seven hours straight—true love at 30,000 feet. Then… nothing. 3 ½ months later, the text: Joshua Ray was diagnosed with cancer, off the road for eight months—do you still want to make something? No money, no camera, no crew. But Gene is all in. He builds a set in the loft at his mom's house, recruits Austin doc-maker Bob Ray to co-direct, and shoots the doc on his late friend Ross McDonnell's camera gear—"just don't change any of his settings, it'll feel like we have him."

From there we work the whole map: moving to the East Village at 19, studying theater under Austin Pendleton, and turning a rejected-everywhere $13,000 "thin feature" — featuring Meryl Streep & Philip Seymour Hoffman among others—into a 19-minute short that premiered at Tribeca: STARRING AUSTIN PENDLETON. Talking his way into hurricane zones with a camera. Producing AMERICAN SYMPHONY with Matt Heineman. And holding the boom for hours in COVID ICUs on THE FIRST WAVE, steadying himself on the repetition of his daughter's favorite lyrics: "a tale as old as time, Beauty and the Beast.".

Plus: a first-ever DocWalks golf swing on a borrowed club, the broads of the East Village, Reed Birney and the break that came at 57, and the advice that sticks—if you have time to worry, you have time to work.

DISCUSSION LINKS:

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING (2026) | AMERICAN SYMPHONY (2023) | THE FIRST WAVE (2021) | STARRING AUSTIN PENDLETON (2016) | THE EYES OF ME (2009) | HELL ON WHEELS (2007) | COOL HAND LUKE (1967) | DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993) | THE DOORS (1991) | BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991)

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 First Light Books and a Hyde Park morning

01:09 Meet Gene Gallerano — best projects start in an alley

01:40 THE EYES OF ME and the wedding-table origin story

04:49 A man on the move: Dallas, and Waco Film Festival wins

05:36 Love at 30,000 feet: meeting Joshua Ray Walker

06:56 Ghosted — then the text that changed everything